


when there is only bad news left

by dinosaurspaceship



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25677841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaurspaceship/pseuds/dinosaurspaceship
Summary: Inspired by the fourth vignette in lavendarseaslug's "make it up as we go along".The Waystar-Royco servers get hacked and Roman is in charge of managing the response.
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Comments: 10
Kudos: 85





	when there is only bad news left

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the fourth vignette in lavendarseaslug's "make it up as we go along". The idea was so good I couldn't get it out of my head, so I blatantly stole it.

“It’s not as bad as the Sony hacks” is what they keep saying. But it sure as fuck feels like it and the Sony hack happened when they were just trying to release a shitty movie, not in the middle of a public showdown between internal power structures of their company. All they know right now is someone external got access to computer records for the last 4-8 years, which means emails, business and personal files, web-searches, meta-data, and if they’ve ever synced their phones with their laptop or into the cloud, everything on their phones. 

They’re all in a conference room with the crisis management team, sifting through all their digital records to see what they can find that might be damaging. The best estimate they have is things will start being released by the end of the day, but it will take longer to find and release the good stuff. 

He’s been assigned a partner, Keith, who is going through all the server records tied to his company email, user id, and cloud phone data repository. The hack has them worried to use any digital processing, so they are going back to basics, paper and pen, no digital trace. There is about a 1000 page stack of papers in front of Keith, which he is slowly going through and highlighting, then sorting into three other stacks of paper. Other people sporadically grab those papers then read them, and if need be stick them on the board under “needs answers”, “problems”, “big problems”. 

They’ve been on his internet searches for the last 2 hours. When he sees like umpteenth paper being added to the “needs answer” section he gets up. He thinks it’s somewhere between 6 and 8pm. They’ve been in this room since 11am, when IT called Gerri to inform them they’d be shutting down the network and there had been an intrusion. They’ve just refilled the coffee carafe, which he certainly doesn’t need but he does need something to do. 

Kendall joins him there, “How are you doing?” 

“Oh just fucking peachy, I love having this Quaker poindexter,” he points to Keith, “looking through all my shit. If he says, “no judgement but…” one more time, I’m going postal.” 

“My guy just keeps sighing, like everything I’ve ever done or written is some disappointment to him.” Kendall replies.

“How bad is it?” Roman starts to walk towards their wall of shame. 

The “big problems” has like two things on it, both not from the executive floor, but he suspects they just haven’t gotten through much. The “problems” section is a lot more, it’s sorted into problem areas, it seems “ATN -Nazism” has more than a few documents piled up, as does “Harassment - Sexual/Physical”. 

Someone to his right is approaching the far end of the board with a marker. “Executive Level” is what she writes and then sticks up two papers, which she writes in smaller letters “Harassment - Verbal”.

“Well fuck, here we go.” Roman says under his breath. 

“1,000 it’s yours.” Kendall says. 

“Nah, my guy hasn’t made it past internet history, this one is all yours.” 

Kendall flips it over, it’s surprisingly a Karl email. “You know in the back of my mind, I keep thinking. This wouldn’t benefit anyone but Dad. He doesn’t do email, he doesn’t do texts, it’s not like we have recordings of his calls, and that’s basically the only way he did business.”

“You think Dad got some hacker to get all our data to try and show your hands are just as dirty?” As Roman is saying it, he realizes it’s actually pretty plausible. 

“It’s kind of brilliant,” he says in a tone that could read as admiration or horror. 

Looking at the crazy amount of paper in the room and the wall of shame, he’s not feeling terrible. “I think it might be okay. Like we can handle the harassment stuff, extra sensitivity training, spout some bullshit about how Dad ran the company like this was Mad Men but we’re evolved and turning over a new leaf.” He points to the Nazi category, “I mean we’ll fire the nazi’s, that seems like a easy fix.” 

“It’s only been a couple hours, I think in a couple days, we’ll have a lot more problems than this.”

They’ve brought in food and a second shift, Roman goes to sleep on the couch in his office for a while. This whole clean up operation is going to be on him, this is managing operations. It’s the first big thing he’s been in charge of and it’s probably the most damaging thing to happen to the company in 50 years. 

He goes back to the conference room at about 5 am, surveys the wall. They’ve begun color coating things, stickies to indicate toxicity levels. There also is a new section, “Prepared Responses”. There is additional coloring happening on the “Executive Level” board. It looks like they’ve each been given a color, he’s a little disappointed, his is purple. The pile under “Harassment - Verbal” has a smattering of blue (Karl), red (Kendall), orange (Frank), green (Gerri) and his purple. There is also a lot of pink, which isn’t in the color key. 

“Who’s pink?” he asks no one in particular.

“Logan, thought it’s what he’d hate the worst,” suddenly Gerri is at his side. 

They haven’t spoken since this all started. She went off to work with the legal team, preparing responses and working on cease and desist documents.

“Looks like you guys have got a lot done.” He gestures to the prepared responses section. 

“It’s mostly the easy stuff.” 

“I was thinking about it, is there a chance we can somehow play this to our advantage?” 

“How do you mean?” Gerri looks at him cautiously.

“There has got to be good stuff in here too? Funny shit or nice shit, charitable shit? I don’t think there isn’t anything redeemable in this? We can’t cook up a shit-listical, “Top 10 funniest shit in Roman Roy’s emails”? Embarrassing selfies from Kendall or shit talking threads about Dad or Tom or something? People loved those Channing Tatum emails, loved producers talking shit about Angelina Jolie. At some point, we’ll maybe want some of that in our back pocket right, turn the news cycle when it gets bad?” 

He finally turns to look at her when he’s finished and she’s got a smirk on her face. He’s begun cataloging her expressions, mostly because she’s hard to read sometimes but also because he’s obsessed with her face. He hardly ever gets this smirk, it’s part surprise, part pride, part turned on. Like she’s impressed he’s had a good idea and good business gets her hot.

“That’s not a terrible idea,” she responds slowly. “I’ll talk to Karolina about it” 

Kara, a name he learned 5 hours ago and still remembers, a small triumph, is carrying a marker to the executive board. He can sense Gerri is tracking her movements just as actively as he is. He can’t tell what she’s written until she’s walking away, “Inappropriate Relationships”. 

“Fuck,” he says under his breath. “Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.” 

Kara’s back at the board with a stack of papers. He can feel the wave of relief take over his body when he sees a new color sticky go up, yellow. Kara writes on another note, then sticks it on the board, “Yellow=Tom W”. She finally steps away. 

They both calmly, precisely, non-rush to the board. It’s texts between Tom and Greg. Out of the context of knowing Tom and Greg, they are pretty bizarre. They are too familiar to be colleagues, too romantic to be family, too combative to be friends. 

“We should talk,” she says it quietly, there is no question it’s a command not a request. 

He follows her to his office. 

“They said not to look for anything, because if someone was still tracking the system it might point them to it. But are they going to find stuff?” He’s never seen her this cautious before, even during the fire squad at sea, she seemed okay with whatever fate may come. She didn’t let her strong and smart facade slip. 

“By stuff you mean,” he gestures between the two of them.

“Yes. I mean,” she mimics the gesture mockingly. 

He’s been racking his brain with the same question since the hack was announced. “Honestly, I have no idea, there will be stuff, but not like explicit stuff, right?” 

“Email should be fine, it will be professional or borderline personal, but nothing out of the ordinary.” Gerri’s clearly been thinking about this too, “I’m worried about texts and call logs.” 

“It’s not like I ever texted you, “lets fuck” or a picture of my dick or anything. It’s like our sexy, which isn’t like you know normal sexy stuff.” 

They’ve never talked about their arrangement openly for this long before. At least not the sexual stuff, it’s always been coded or quick reprimands. 

“Do you have a good way of explaining why you call me basically every other night between 9 and 1 am? If it’s asked, we need a good explanation.” 

“Business?” Roman suggests quite pitifully.

“Business,” she just says it back to him, as if she needs to prove to him how much of an idiot he sounds like. 

“Okay, I don’t know, can we just say, fuck em, and not respond? Or it’s COO stuff, just not enough hours in the day?”

“It will start back when you were at management training, right, which could just be corporate check ins, and then it became a routine? Would that work?”

He takes a breath and decides to dive in, “What if we were just honest?” 

“And say what, Roman Roy is a sexual deviant, our general council thought it best to not only placate but encourage and actively participate in that behavior, amounting to a total of X number of late night interactions we’d characterize as “phone sex”. Additionally, we can provide you text message interactions that clearly show, general council inviting Mr. Roy, over to her home on occasion. If anyone has any questions we’d be happy to answer, as we are interested in the total humiliation of these two employees,” she sits down on his couch, defeated.  


Roman takes a minute to let that sink in. He moves to sit next to her, “Well I wouldn’t sell it as that.”

“How would you sell it then?” it’s the most petulant she’s ever sounded to him. 

“I like you?” it comes out more unsure than he had intended. “I like you,” more secure this time. “I like talking to you and working with you and spending time with you. We have high profile, highly demanding jobs, which is hard for other people to relate to, and we know each other really well. So maybe I like you a lot, like maybe it’s more than that, but that’s for us. And for everyone else, we’re friends? Close friends? Best friends?” 

She doesn’t seem to want, or be able, to process the middle bit of what he said, “Roman Roy and Gerri Kellman are good friends, they interact both professionally and personally and fuck off?” Though her voice picks up pitch at the end, indicating she’s not sure it will work, she shrugs like she doesn’t hate the idea. 

“There is a chance too that no one cares or notices.” 

“It’s always best to be prepared for all eventualities,” she says, always the lawyer.

“In that case, I really don’t think we should deny anything if it comes up.”

“Expand on that?” 

“If we deny something, it could come back to bite us. Say eventually, are out together somewhere and holding hands or sitting too closely or something happens in the office and it’s leaked. It’d be bad for us if we denied something that was true and got caught out later.” 

“Right,” she’s not looking at him, her voice uncertain now, “but none of that stuff is going to happen.” 

“Right,” he stops looking at her, “I’d like for it to be a possibility is all I’m saying.” 

“A possibility,” she repeats back.

“An eventuality,” there is a level of hope and possibility in his voice. 

“Right,” she sounds tired but maybe a little excited, “so friendship bracelets and fuck em it is then.” 

She sighs and gets up, heading back to the war room. He stays for a while on the couch, sifting through that conversation in his mind. He feels lighter, like he’s broken free of an unseen, unspoken chain.  


He gets back to the room to discover not much has changed, just a shit ton of harassment and general poor working conditions. He starts working with the guys going through the “need answers” piles. Identifying next steps and possible actions to be taken along with public response. It’s sort of nice going through all the dirty laundry, it feels sort of cleansing. 

After lunch he sits down with Karolina to review the possible distraction pieces. Unsurprisingly all of his favorites are around him, “Roman Roy’s Best Email Take Downs from the Waystar Leaks”, “Worst Corporate Brainstorming Courtesy of Roman Roy”, “You Have to See This Kendall and Roman Roy “F*ck You” Text Exchange”. 

Karolina seems to be bracing for the last one and Roman panics for a minute like she’s discovered something. “Gerri suggested something along these lines, no one else has seen it, I pulled this one together but I wasn’t sure if it was too much.” She pushes a paper in front of him, top reads, “Things the Roy Siblings Aren’t Putting in Logan Roy’s Father’s Day Card”

It hits him pretty hard. He was always comfortable being the butt of the joke, but this was something else. The first thing on the list was an email Logan calling Kendall a “fucking pansy”, the second and third are like that, Roman being called “a fucking idiot” and Kendall, a “moron among morons”. 

Number four and five are about Connor, which doesn’t really matter to him. Six is pretty rough, apparently Logan suggested paying off Tom to not marry Shiv, claiming he wasn’t worthy of her. Seven and eight are more Kendall insults.

Nine makes him stop. It’s an exchange between Kendall and Frank, wherein Kendall refuses to bring his kids along to the Hamptons for a family gathering. He hadn’t really thought about it, but after Logan hit Iverson with a can at Thanksgiving, the kids haven’t really been around. They came to Shiv’s wedding, maybe Christmas? He’ll have to give Kendall the opportunity to decide on that one. 

Ten is an email from him to Kendall no snarky lead up or context just his own words:

**Subject: Our insurance is bullshit  
**

****

_Just got a bill for my fucking tooth, turns out emergency dental work isn’t cheap. Apparently replacing a tooth your shitbag of a dad cold clocked out of your mouth is considered “aesthetic” and not covered by shit.  
My lawyer will be requesting a change to the family trust to reimburse me $7k for the cost and then I think like $600k for pain and suffering. I think it should come out of Shiv’s forth. _

“Fuck,” he thinks. They’re just going to put it all out there. Fight fire with fire. 

He’s getting ready to let Karolina know he’s okay with it, but it has to go through Kendall too, when he sees Keith quickly pass by. He’s walking straight for Gerri. His stomach drops. Keith is pulling her out of whatever conversation she is having to talk in private. She looks around the room subtly until she finds him, he tries to offer her a reassuring smile, but her focus is back on Keith. 

At some point she nods, taking the paper from Keith and he returns to his seat. She doesn’t give any indication to follow her, but he does nonetheless. She goes to her office this time, putting the paper on her desk and leaning back in her chair. 

“I was so sure you’d be the one to blow it.” 

He grabs the paper, it’s text records between the two of them. His eyes narrow in on the highlighted sections: 

**Roman:** I think I might die right here, in this meeting 

**Roman:** I bet they’d say I was such a dedicated son, just tried my very best to make daddy proud. 

**Roman:** I bet you wouldn’t even cry, not a single tear shed for dear ol Roman 

**Roman:** Would you speak at the funeral? 

**Roman:** “Roman was among those I worked with at Waystar” 

**Roman:** “Roman was, from time to time, in the office.” 

**Gerri:** Roman really lived the opposite of the expression, “speak softly and carry a big stick.” 

**Roman:** I’m a fucking Rockstar 

**Gerri:** Rockstar up your meeting and maybe I’ll let you come over tonight, see if you can prove me wrong, give me something to actually eulogize other than your piss poor attitude and inability to focus. 

**Roman:** Sorry, I’m in a meeting, let me get back to you when I’m free. 

“Honestly, I don’t think it’s that bad.” 

“Roman,” she sighs, “that’s not friendship.” 

“Sorry this is page what, 1925 of 6 million. You think they’re gonna find that? They are going to search for like “sex”, “dick”, “fuck”. It’s flirty who cares.” 

She hands him another sheet, clearly the next in the thread, there is a single line highlighted:

 **Roman:** On my way, fyi I’m bringing Chinese

“Okay so not great, but I don’t think it changes anything in the plan.” 

“The we are friends plan?”

“Yeah, sure, it could work.”

“Yeah, I don’t think most people text people they aren’t fucking shit like this Roman,” she lifts up the paper. “This is clearly me inviting my boss, my boss who is not significantly older than my children, over for sex.” 

“Fuck you, I’m not 18. We’re adults. You’re hot and smarter than me, and we work together, that’s how these things happen.” He’s never realized how frustrated he was by this before, “I get that maybe you’re embarrassed about being with me. I’m obviously not, a fucking titan of finance or a professor or some boring, more appropriate loof. But come on, I basically live at your house. I’ve proposed.” His voice has gotten progressively louder, and her demeanor has shifted. Suddenly the conversation is bigger than PR strategy. 

He sighs, “We could lie and say nothing happened, it was all power games and flirting or whatever the fuck you come up with. But it’s over then. I’ll find myself a nice asexual girl and we’ll live happily ever after and you can protect yourself from the humiliation of being associated with my dick.” 

He moves towards the door, “Let me know whatever you decide. I’ve got to go approve a story about how my dad punched me.” 

He hears a soft, “Rome,” as he closes the door. 

He talks to Kendall about the “shitty daddy” piece as they’ve begun calling it, they suggest a different one for number 9. Someone found an email between Frank and Logan, where Logan lists his least favorite features of youngest son. He’s really having a great day.

They’ve got general responses cooked up for most of all the categories they’ve found. He knows there’s something big out there they haven’t found yet, but figures they are at least better suited to ride out the storm now then they were before. Roman thanks everyone for their hard work, helps get all the paperwork together, and closes down the war room. 

There isn’t anything for a couple of days, but a couple of Twitter accounts get taken over. They quash it pretty quick, but everyone is on edge. Two days later, the first data dump is posted to a file sharing site. Karolina says it contains mostly executive level emails, it’s massive so it will take folks on the internet quite a bit of time to review and get anything worthwhile. They have talking points about privacy and corporate espionage and no comment pending lawsuits. 

Someone, he thinks probably an ex-boyfriend or something, went through looking for all the emails that contain “Shiv”. So they as a family have a nice call where they all agree to ignore anything they’ve ever said about each other, because it was obviously never going to be nice. 

There’s a minor circus around some of the specifics of Shiv and Tom’s wedding, how much it cost, how much the company paid for. It’s pretty mild. It must have pissed off whoever was holding the data because they had two releases in rapid succession the next day including internal personnel files, employee reviews, financial reports and phone data.

He finds out Gerri’s middle name is Elizabeth. Frank had a son who died of cancer when he was 5. Karl attended divinity school to become a minister before dropping out after meeting his wife. Tom got middling performance reviews until he started dating Shiv. Kendall’s divorce settlement was somehow released, as was Shiv’s prenup. There are a lot of things out in the world now that everyone would have preferred to stay private. 

They release their harassment policy changes, implement the new training, Kendall does the rounds talking about how the old guard didn’t know how to run a modern workplace. They shit can the Nazis. It’s going pretty well all things considered. Someone bites on the “Roman’s terrible ideas” pitch. He gets a light ribbing on the internet for that, but better than people gawking at how much money his brother pays his ex-wife every month. 

They find the dental insurance email on their own. He feels like an idiot for ever writing it. He and Karolina issue a blanket no statement, but apparently someone at Argestes confirms the story and someone that the dental office remembers him. A “source close to the family” confirms that there was an altercation after the Roy panel. For the life of him he can’t figure out who it was, considering it was only Shiv, Tom, Maria, Kendall, Logan, and Gerri in that room. 

It’s not terrible, having the world confirm what they already knew, the Roy’s are a shit show. Dealing with this shit seems to make the days go longer. He’s tired to his bones at the end of the day. It’s 11pm and he’s in bed when he gets a text. It’s Karolina:

 **Karolina:** Been asked to comment about a “breaking” story, “Muddled Relations at the Top of Waystar” - lead is problems at Waystar stem from inappropriate and toxic relationships at the executive level. Some suggestion of romantic stuff but mostly power plays and general mistrust. 

**Roman:** No comment 

**Roman:** Sorry, I'm in for the night. Back on at 6. Thanks. 

He doesn’t get much sleep, but is happy for what he does get. He has nothing outstanding via text or calls, so he assumes nothing broke overnight. Roman get’s to his office at 630, he can see Gerri’s in already. It’s quiet and peaceful and he thinks there's a chance, all of this was a dream and he gets to spend the day trying to finalize a licensing deal with Universal for a new cruise line, but he sees Karolina in the hallway headed towards his door and knows that’s not the case. 

As it’s gone every morning since this whole thing started, she provides him a summary of social media response to the published headlines and stories, any recently released stories, then anything outstanding they have in for comment. 

“There has been a lot of traction on the abuse story,” she seems like she’s trying to thread a very fine needle. “We are being pushed for comment, Connor has released a statement saying he’s never been harmed or witnessed any abuse. I’m fairly certain Shiv is the “source close to the family”.”

Roman sighs, “What would you suggest we do? I’m not going to comment, Kendall isn’t going to comment, that’s what we’ve discussed earlier, do you think we should?” 

“This is family, I typically don’t step in with the family, but we could issue a statement, something like, “There has been a lot of private information released in the last few weeks, are working to segregate the Waystar-Royco and the Roy personal interest. I am ready to comment on Waystar related news items to the best of my ability, but private family matters will be kept as private.” Just to get it off the desk, maybe to the family lawyers?” 

“I’ll take the idea to Shiv and Ken, we’re trying to be a unified front on this. I’m sure that’s not all the terrible stuff, what else you got?” 

“We’ve gotten some good press about the new policies, it sounds like training roll outs are going well. Someone may be sniffing around about Kendall’s old shoplifting habits, but we never had any electronic records of that stuff so I think we should be good unless it’s like a eyewitness account thing. It might be Logan trying to stir stuff up.” 

“So not terrible,” he’s sure more will come in throughout the day, it always seems to hit around 10. “Anything else?”

“Gerri agreed no comment on the other story, so we will see if they publish, deadline was last night so it will probably hit 9 or 10 if they go with it.” 

“Okay sounds good. Thanks again, I know this is a nightmare, you’ve been fantastic through it all. We wouldn’t survive without you.” He’s genuine. Karolina is a rock, handled all of this like a champion. 

“Thanks Roman, I’ll let you know when anything else comes in.” 

The story is on page six at 8:30, just in time for everyone’s morning coffee, “Relationships at the Top of Waystar Muddled by New and Old Controversy”. It contains their no comment, but there isn’t anything too damning in it. It seems they went wider in scope than just Gerri and him. The whole executive floor is being accused of Machiavellian behavior. It doesn’t include anything from the leaks, just “a source” here and “someone close to the situation” there. But it’s someone pulling the thread, and there is someone out there that will start to pull together call records, start to paint a true story. 

Karolina sends him a tweet at 9:20:

**@SimonSimonSimon**

It looks like Roman Roy calls the same number every night for like six months, it’s unlisted but I’m thinking it’s a sex line. 

There is an attached photo of call listings showing recurring calls to the same number. 

“He’s not entirely wrong,” he thinks. 

Karolina then sends him a screenshot of her phone, it’s Gerri’s personal cell, the same number listed on the call logs. “I’m going to have to have answers for the eventual questions.” 

“Gerri is running point on this one.” 

It’s maybe 5 minutes before he sees Karolina cross the office, entering Gerri’s office. He’s too scared to search his name on Twitter or check his google alerts. The anticipation of what’s to come, what’s being decided across the hallway is crippling him. 

They come in 40 minutes later, unsurprisingly they both look a little exhausted. 

Karolina looks between the two of them, but realizes no one is going to speak first. “Okay, so Roman, Gerri and I have discussed what you two I guess have already discussed. I think the best course of action is to say very little, answer only questions pertaining to the company and official duties. Anything outside of that, the personal stuff, would be redirected to your personal lawyers.” She looks to Roman, who nods his solemn agreement. “I’ve talked to Keith, and it sounds like one specific text and the call logs is all they’ll find, but there is the risk of things like statements from doormen or drivers. I think we should be okay, but I’ll have someone cover the bases.” 

“Thanks,” Roman says softly. 

“Okay, I’ll update you as things progress.” Karolina turns back to her phone and sweeps out of the room.

“You look tired,” Gerri says softly.

“So do you. And I am tired.” 

“It’s a pretty stressful time, you’d fare better without additional disruptions to your routines,” she suggests offhandedly like she wasn’t offering him a lifeboat he so desperately needs. 

“Okay, I’ll try that.” He smiles at her and gets a very slight smile in return. 

“Okay.” 

The text never comes out, but people figured out the call logs. A collection of photos are posted of them getting in and out of cars together. A “source close to the family” says they are exceedingly close, and Roman has struggled for years maintaining romantic relationships. He thinks it’s Tabitha but doesn’t have the guts to ask. 

Kendall sort of asks, couching it in some sort of joke, “I have to ask, was she reading you bedtime stories, is it some sort of weird anxiety thing? Basically every night seems like a lot.” 

Roman knew it was going to come to this point, he talked about it with Gerri, what they’d say to the family. He doesn’t go with the answer she wanted, “It was an organic extension of the work.” Instead he says, “I like the sound of her voice and the words her brain comes up with. You get it, it’s like how you are with cocaine.” 

“You’re saying you’re addicted to talking to Gerri? General Council, someone ends up dead or arrested, who do you call, Gerri?” the disbelief in his voice is palpable. 

“It’s not just the talking, but yeah, it was an organic extension of the work.” 

Shiv was more direct, “Are you fucking my godmother?” 

“Don’t be so crass Siobhan.” Roman says in faux shock. 

“That’s the best I can come up with, also what is she thinking, good lord. Roman, what the fuck?” 

He laughs, imagines if she’ll say “Fuck off” if he gives her the “organic extension” line. 

“It works for us?” is the best he can come up with that is still true. 

“I mean I knew she was just as damaged by it all, like no hesitation she’d knife a dude, but this I did not expect. It makes sense I guess, for months you were all “Gerri thinks” or “Gerri says” like anyone gave a fuck about that. I guess you did.”

He just nods, not wanting to get in trouble for saying something he’s not supposed to. 

“So you’re happy with your arrangement then?” 

“Yep.” 

“Okay, well, I guess, I’m happy for you?” 

“Thanks.” 

They slowly over time let down their guard, not so much at work, but in the car, in the world, at the rare family event. He moves in full time and they do some redecorating. One day in an interview he refers to her as his partner and the next day the world keeps on spinning.

**Author's Note:**

> I will now return to "coming in from the cold". Thank you for following me on this diversion.


End file.
